Tag: IOS

Your iPhone Just Got Better

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In case you missed it yesterday, Apple had a few new products to share with you yesterday.  As usual, the company continues to just crush it and will be providing you with new and more productive ways to leverage and use all of the Apple technology that you have.  Apple announced a major iOS 7 redesign, with countless iOS 7 features that are rolling out in the iOS 7 beta today.  They are also going directly after Pandora with their new iRadio service and killed a few competitive apps by just including these capabilities in the operating system, like the flashlight.

So in case you missed the announcements yesterday, here are a few nuggets for you.  Change is good.  But remember, as Woodrow Wilson once said “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.”  So this will identify the positives around the announcements.  Someone else can write about what they hate about Apple.  Not me.

Apple New Design

  1. Control Center – In iOS 7 Apple adds a Control Center, which allows users to swipe up from the bottom of any screen for access to toggling WiFi, Do Not Disturb, Brightness, controlling music playback, AirPlay and more. There’s also a flashlight built-in and shortcuts to apps.
  2. Swipe to Go Back – When in Safari or other apps, if you need to go back, don’t bother looking for the back button, swiping in from the left will go back.
  3. Scrolling App Folders – The new app folders in iOS 7 aren’t limited to a few apps. If you want to put all your games into a folder you can now do that and scroll through apps in a folder.
  4. Better Sharing Menu – The new iOS 7 sharing menu includes a scrollable list of apps and other iPhones to make sharing photos and more simpler.
  5. Great New Look – Apple changed the look of IOS, from the font and dock up to the status bar at the top of the iPhone. This is a brand new look that many users are already excited to try out.
  6. New Multitasking With Previews – The new iOS 7 multitasking uses the full size of the iPhone 5 display to let users see what’s going on in apps. Users can also swipe up to kill an app, instead of long pressing on it.
  7. Siri Voice Options – In iOS 7 Siri offers a new female voice and a male voice for the first time.
  8. More Control of iPhone with Siri – Siri can now control more of the iPhone. In the demo Siri on iOS 7 controlled brightness, returning calls and controlling iRadio.
  9. iOS 7 Looks Change to Match Your Background – When you change the background of the home screen, elements of the IOS system will change to match the colors. This includes the dialer and other parts of iOS 7.
  10. New Camera App – iOS 7 features a new Camera app that includes faster access to panorama, a new look and much more.

These are just 10 of the great new things developed by Apple and announced yesterday.  Thanks to the folks at Gottabemobile for the summary.  An additional 40 new items can be found at http://www.gottabemobile.com/2013/06/10/50-ios-7-features-youll-actually-care-about/

And the hits just keep on coming.  Speaking about hits, here is one of my favorite summer songs from The Alarm:

Webman

Who is #3?

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global mobile

Android and iOS account for almost 90 percent of the global smartphone market. They control a similar share of the U.S. smartphone market, the world’s largest by revenue.

In a recent report from BI Intelligence (www.businessinsider.com), it is clear that we live right now in a mobile world dominated by Google and Apple.  Can there be a number 3?

  • Microsoft – It launched Windows Phone in 2010, and tablet-friendly Windows 8 this year. It is experienced in building developer communities. However, Windows Phone has so far only managed a paltry 3 percent platform market share.
  • Amazon – A smartphone would be a natural extension of Amazon’s distribution empire, and its Kindle Fire tablet play. Amazon has 106 million unique visitors accessing its sites, many of them with credit cards on file.
  • Samsung – Its dependency on Android may become a liability and push the South Korean manufacturer into the platform business. Samsung’s strength is its hardware sales prowess — Samsung shipped over 56 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2012.

Blackberry? Dead.  Check out John Belushi and insert Blackberry for Niedermeyer.

Webman

 

Should mobile devices be allowed in meetings?

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No!

When you are in a meeting it is your responsibility to participate.  That is why you are there.

In order to effectively participate, you need to follow the conversation closely and consider every point being made so that you can comment and add value to the meeting.  If you are not prepared to add value, why did you go to the meeting?  If you are multi-tasking your ability to add value drops dramatically.

Always focus on value creation and making a difference.  If you are reading your tiny screen, you are not contributing and it is obvious to everyone else in the meeting that you are not contributing.

When you are juggling e-mails, calls and texts your IQ falls 10 points.  Don’t let your IQ fall 🙂

Webman

Mobile E-Mail

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As mentioned yesterday, mobile access to e-mail is exploding, now accounting for nearly 33% of initial e-mail access points. Folks are on-the-go and reading their e-mails within a much different context than reading on their laptop/desktops. Walk around your office and notice how many people are heading to or in meetings with just their mobile device. If they are like me, the amount of time spent looking at an e-mail is getting shorter and shorter, while the volume of e-mails continues to escalate on a daily basis, making the right offer, at the right time to the right person a rapidly changing target.

If you are like me, your e-mail evaluation process has changed from scan, read, delete to scan, delete, read so the need to capture my attention in the headline or in the first line of the e-mail has become even more important as this is all that is visible on the screen. so not only has it become difficult for companies that I have opted into for offers, but for companies that are trying to acquire me as a customer for the first time, they must really capture my attention immediately. If not, delete for them.

One of the challenges for enterprise or company e-mail providers are the variety of capabilities that are available through each of the mobile service/technology providers. This is extremely important to understand as the ability to reach consumers B2C (mostly via the Apple IOS or Google Android platforms) is significantly different that a company that is trying to reach business customers B2B (Many businesses still use Blackberry but not sure for how long). Take a look at the following infographic for the differences across each of these platforms.

So make sure you are taking these platform differences into consideration when planning your campaigns. Thanks again to the folks at Litmus for the cool infographics. www.litmus.com

Have an awesome day.

Webman

Draw Something – Part 2

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We covered Draw Something last week, but so much is happening so fast we needed to do a quick follow-up.

Quick reminder – Draw Something is a highly addictive social drawing game available for Apple iOS and Android Devices.  You draw and guess words, play cooperatively with friends or competitively with rivals.

Here is what the app looks like when you download it:

So what are the updated statistics:

  • Launched 7 weeks ago
  • 20 million daily active users
  • 37 million downloads
  • 3 billion drawings since launch
  • 1 billion drawings last week
  • 2,000 drawings per second
  • Number 1 app in 85 countries

Check out these Draw Something drawings – these folks are good.

Mine definitely do not look like these – LOL

Go and download the app from the Apple or Android stores and give it a try.

Enjoy.

Webman

Draw Something – WOW

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There is an app for that! Well we have heard that many times.  In the Apple app store there are now over 500,000 apps.  Enter the App Store and you will find apps in many categories such as games, lifestyle, social networking, productivity, education and many, many more.  Many of the apps are free, but these apps come with the ever present advertising, which I find annoying. If you have the $0.99 or the $1.99 pony it up to eliminate this clutter. For those of you with Android phones, there are now over 415,000 apps in that store as well.

The app market is big and getting bigger everyday.  The market size now exceeds $10 billion and is growing at 100+% per year.  Nice.

And games like Angry Birds are just amazing with regard to the shear number of downloads and people playing.  Angry Birds has been downloaded 600,000,000 times.  Hey Mario, we hardly knew ya.

When it comes to growing really fast though, we are watching a new app called Draw Something growing at a rate that may be unprecedented.  If you do not know what Draw Something is, ask your kids because they are likely playing it.  Draw Something is a highly addictive social drawing game available for Apple iOS and Android Devices.  You draw and guess words, play cooperatively with friends or competitively with rivals.  How fast is this growing?  Draw Something launched in February. Here are the statistics in 6 weeks:

  • Number 1 app in 80 countries
  • Downloaded more than 20,000,000 times
  • Generates $100,000+ in revenue per day
  • Has 12+ million users per day

Now for some staggering statistics about Draw Something:

  • AOL – 9 years to get to 1 million users
  • Facebook – 9 months to get to 1 million users
  • Draw Something – 9 days

Check out the video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rCoRZbyLWE

Download the app and have some fun!

Enjoy the weekend.

Webman

An Apple a Day……

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…….has now been changed to An Apple per Household (Not there yet but well on our way)

According to a recent poll by CNBC, Apple products are present in 51%of US households. 55 million households own an iOS device (iPad, iPhone, iTouch etc.) or a Mac computer.

The average US household owns some 1.6 Apple devices. How many are in your home?

The Webman’s household has 8 Apple devices.  I get the feeling that this chart will soon look much different 🙂

Enjoy the day.

Webman

iPad vs Kindle Fire

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New iPad vs. Kindle Fire: Which Tablet is Right for You?

I have written about the iPad a number of times. One of my followers, Michael, is considering taking the plunge and buying a tablet.  He wanted to know the differences between an iPad and a Kindle.  So here we go Michael.  Not that I am trying to influence you in any way but Apple sold about a gagillion new iPads since the new one launched.  Not that I am trying to pressure you in any way or influence your decision 🙂

Headline – Two completely different products.  The new iPad with it’s coolness factor, new retina display, apps, and overall capabilities including as a reading device, etc. is a game changer but not as friendly to your budget while the Kindle Fire is more budget-friendly and primarily serves as a reading device.  So let’s take a look at the various factors to consider when you’re looking for your next tablet:

Media Content and Reading Experience

Both the new iPad and the Kindle Fire offer awesome content.  

Amazon offers more than 100,000 movies and TV shows to rent or buy, and Amazon Prime users can access unlimited free streaming for over 10,000 titles; Apple offers no such program. The iTunes store has more than 15,000 movies and 90,000 TV episodes. Both Amazon and Apple tout music collections nearing 20 million songs. Impressive.

When it comes to the music, Apple has the benefit of iTunes, with special features like Genius and iTunes Match. Amazon allows a little more breathing room for playback on other devices; from phones to other tablets to internet-enabled TVs. Apple is more restrictive, limiting media to its own devices.

Then there are books, newspapers, and magazines. Amazon’s selection is superior, but since you can get the Kindle App for your iPad, there really is no advantage there. The iPad retina display, with its 264 pixels per inch, game changer and not on the Fire

Specs

A quick summary for you:

Chart

The iPad offers 4G LTE connectivity.  Both access all wireless hot spots of course so you need to decide if you want the data plan on the iPad as this will add additional costs

If you want your new tablet to replace your digital camera, then the iPad’s new 5-megapixel camera will be a big factor. No camera on The Kindle Fire. Battery life will likely be longer on the iPad too, but that’s because it’s a bigger tablet that can house a bigger battery.

Software and Apps
The Amazon Appstore is very good, with thousands of choices, but it can’t compare with the more than 170,000 native iPad apps in the Apple App Store.  

It’s hard to argue with the simplicity and elegance of Apple’s iOS. It is just better.

Pricing and Value
The Kindle Fire costs $199, while the entry level 16GB iPad will cost $499. If your intentions are purely casual, like light Web browsing, email, and Angry Birds, then the Kindle Fire will likely suffice. But if you want your tablet to replace your laptop, or at least come close, the iPad is more powerful, feature rich, and offers a superior, tablet-optimized app selection.

Both great products.  Time to decide which one is right for you.

Webman